A bitter swill to pallow.

I don’t know how I came to write the title of this post- but I’m feeling terribly dislexic today after a gruelling day yesterday and not much sleep last night.

I was chatting to A online and it suddenly occured to me exactly how vague and depressed I was feeling. I hate when I’m like this, I hate it, because I take out my frustrations on the people I love the most. I don’t know why I do, perhaps it’s some personality trait-type anger that other people feel happier than me so I do anything I can to bring them down to my level. Who the fuck knows. All I know is that right now, my head feels like television static, and Lord help anyone that gets in my way right now. My mood is not the best.

I’m at work currently, the paid job at the psych hospital, typing up discharge summaries and wondering about the lives of the people in them. I could so easily slot into any of these stories: only difference being that the one time I seriously contemplated suicide, I couldn’t find the razor blades in order to do it. That was about 4 years ago, and although I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time, I can relate that episode with the clarity of it occuring yesterday. I was on some pretty trippy weight loss drugs at the time (misprescribed by a shitty family doctor who seriously needs to retire: malpractice is looming over his head in many of his diagnoses) and suddenly it occured to me that I needed to do it. I ditched the dinner party I was at at the time, and walked home to slit my wrists. I knew exactly where the razor blades were, and I knew where I’d do it. But when I went to the dining room table to find them, they weren’t there. I searched long and hard, crying and yelling and screaming and cursing why I couldn’t even get this one fucking thing right. I cried for hours in my bed, then somehow fell asleep.

The next day, I woke up, still feeling shitty, but getting up anyway when the house was stirring. I opened my door (which faced onto the dining/living room), and the very first thing that I clapped my eyes on was the packet of razor blades. Lying in plain view on the dining room table. I had no idea whether they were there the entire time, or whether someone had taken them away overnight. In any case, I had mixed feelings, but I didn’t think about doing it again. The months following that episode were very blurry. I ended up sleeping with my housemate (who was at the time a virgin, and had strong feelings for me), and then ditched him. I was totally out of sorts. It wasn’t until I’d gone overseas 10 months later did I start to feel a little more normal.

That same mindset hasn’t come back since August 2004. It has, however, had many manifestations over the years, in varying degrees. I’ve been thinking of doing a bit of case management on myself and starting a diary of my moods – noting levels and types of mood. It has started to concern me, especially how before I get into a very very low mood, I will be quite angry and lash out at people. Following this is the extreme guilt, which leads to those feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, and generally like I can’t get anything right. I don’t know whether that anger can be interpreted as mania? Working in mental health as much as I do, I can usually pick the manic behaviour, but maybe what I have is buildingup to something similar? I don’t know.

In any case.

A was chatting to me online earlier – I mentioned this – and he had asked whether I wanted to talk about it or whether there was something he could do. Truth is, there is nothing he can do. And I don’t want to talk about it with him, because it only worries him more and makes him overly protective of me. I highly value my independence, and for me, the signs of weakness I display to him mean that he will only extend his wing out more.

Ugh. I don’t know what this post was meant to achieve, but at least I feel a bit better for having written it.